A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c12.45

c12.45

The Tolkāppiyam states definitely that marriage as a sacrament attended with ritual was established in the Tamil country by the Aryas. It is well known that the earliest Dharmaśāstras mention eight forms of marriage as part of the Aryan code—itself the result of a blend between Aryan and pre-Aryan forms that prevailed in the North; these eight forms are mentioned in the Tolkāppiyam and other works, and much ingenuity is spent in accommodating them to Tamil forms. The Tamils had a relatively simple conception of marriage; they recognized the natural coming together of man and woman, and the natural differences in the manifestations of love, possibly due ultimately to differences in the physical conditions of the different parts of the country. These they designated as the five tiṇais. They had also names for unilateral love, kaikkiḷai and improper love, peruṇiṇai. Into this framework an attempt was made to squeeze the eight Aryan forms with results by no means happy. Such difficulties of synthesis apart, the most tangible result of the meeting of the Tamil and the Aryan was the tremendous richness and fecundity that was imparted to the Tamil idiom thereby and the rise of a beautiful literature which combined classic grace with vernacular energy and strength. This literature of the Śangam, the earliest stratum of Tamil literature now available, is also in many ways the best.